Page 14 - NFRCAnnualReport2017

What We Do continued
commercial procedures. The active task
groups continued to evaluate programs
and procedures within their scopes.
The NFRC’s Task Groups are the council’s
roundtable of experts. These fenestration
professionals are brought together to
study specific issues and recommend
effective action. Their heavy lifting keeps
our programs running smoothly.
NFRC’s Residential
Program
The Product Certification Program (PCP)
In 2016, the Certification Process –
Streamline Task Group was formed to
tackle the NFRC certification process with
the goal of removing any non-value-
added steps that complicate and slow
certification. NFRC hosted a kaizen event
facilitated by Applied Innovation Alliance.
Among the ideas generated during the
week-long, intensive evaluation were:
Annual Energy Performance
Simulate Only 3mm Glass and
Remove Grids
Validation Simplification
Redefine Certification
Harmonize Certification Cycles
Annual LAP/CAP Workshops
Simplify the NFRC Temporary Label
Process and Document Database
Streamlined License Agreements
Develop Improved/Targeted
Communications from NFRC to
Program Participants
Residential Component Based
Calculation (RCBC)
The RCBC task group took great strides
in 2017 to address questions and issues
raised by participants from a 2016 ballot
about rounding and trendlines. A task
group meeting in May and responses to
ballots at the Fall 2017 Membership
Meeting provided the task group with
guidance to improve on the development
of the RCBC methodology.
The task group has continued to move at
a fast and productive pace. The task group
volunteers have aggressive deadlines
to provide more research and information
to develop a ballot for the 2018 spring “Kaizen” process:
meeting. Please visit the RCBC Task change for the better,
Group page for more information on the
task group and for information on joining streamlining our
the efforts to move the task forward. programs to make
them easier for our
NFRC’s Commercial
Program program participants
to navigate and to
Component Modeling Approach (CMA) attract new members.
Throughout 2017, NFRC’s staff assessed
the pros and cons of the Component
Modeling Approach Program (CMA) while
looking for ways to increase use and
improve user experience. We enhanced
our market knowledge by engaging
subject matter experts with one-on-one
interviews, site visits, and focused work
group sessions that helped identified
several critical attributes for a successful
program:
Certification needs to remain outside the
critical path of projects
The generation of ratings must be easy
and fast
Ratings at specified sizes are necessary
for building energy consumption
calculations
Our current proposal also looks to bridge
the gap between residential and
commercial programs with one unifying
ratings methodology (such as the one
being proposed through the RCBC Task
Group). The complexity of the commercial
market precludes a single program solution
for both residential and commercial use.
NFRC’s staff presented an outline for a
commercial ratings program that would
provide separate paths to generate
commercial ratings dependent upon the
type of product being rated: one path for
project or custom work and another path
for more-standard products that may
be reused and benefit from a listing in a
certified products directory. Members
success through intention 14